


Tired Alexander

by UnoSlut



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Again, Canon Timeline, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Hamilton overworked himself, Laf Herc and Burr are really only in one scene, Not Canon Compliant, PTSD, Panic Attack, Sickfic, Sleep Deprivation, Storms, but its kinda long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 15:16:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20996927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnoSlut/pseuds/UnoSlut





	Tired Alexander

“Hamilton............Alexander...”

“ALEXANDER HAMILTON!”

“Whatever it was it wasn’t my fault!” Shooting up from his desk was probably not the best idea as a spell of dizziness overcame him.  
“And what fault would that be?”  
Looking over to the man who disturbed him resting his eyes; he was not asleep. He found himself looking up at Washington staring down at him, caught red-handed, he looked back down at his work, marks of illegible words and scribbles look back at him as the red rises to his face.

“How long have you been here?”

Looking back up at Washington, “A couple of days, sir.”

Washington raised an eyebrow at him is disbelief.

“Then you should be able to tell me what day it is, Hamilton.”

“Thursday…? April the 4th?”

“It’s Friday the 11th, Alexander.”  
Flinching he thought, ‘Oh god’, whenever Washington had called him by his first name, he knew he was in trouble. Facing down towards his work he regretfully stared at the amount of work he still had to do. Papers strewn about his desk, letters from Eliza about her travels, commands for the next battalions, requests to be sent to congress, rejections from congress. The muffled sound the Hamilton could hear had now fallen to silence in the room.

‘Oh god was Washington still talking, shit. I didn’t hear a thing he said.’

“Hamilton, I haven’t seen you leave your office lately, have you been eating properly?”  
Looking at his desk he knew Washington already knew the answer. Hearing a sigh beside him arms wrapped around him and lifted him from the chair.

“S-Sir?! What are you doing?”

“Taking you to bed, my boy. You obviously can’t take care of yourself as an adult so I’m no longer treating you like one until you have a meal and at least 8 hours of sleep.”  
Hamilton was lifted over Washington’s shoulder as he walked out of the office with the man weakly fighting against him. Concerned at the man’s growing ‘need’ to be in his office working, he was sure that if he worked that hard on his work he must surely take care of himself, but after seeing him not leave his office for little more than a few minutes for a drink or to collect more papers he was sure that Hamilton was both neglecting his need for sleep and food over his anxiety against abandoning his work, and that’s how he found him in his office that day face down in the piles of papers around him gently snoring.  
“Washin- Sir please, I can walk using my own legs.”  
The growing heat to his face didn’t make him feel any better about being slung over the generals’ shoulder.  
“Alright then, if you’re able to walk to the end of this hall without collapsing then you can walk by yourself to get home.”  
Placing him down Washington watched Hamilton get about half-way down the hall before slowing his pace to a stop and passing out. Catching him as he walked beside him, Washington once again slung him over his shoulder and moved towards the end of the hall before realising his dilemma. Although he had hired Hamilton himself, he didn’t know where he lived. Mentally slapping himself he did what was possibly both the best and worst decision and took him to his own house to take care of him. 

Taking the short walk to his home Washington unlocks his door and walks into the dark silence, Hamilton still passed out on his shoulder. It was starting to storm outside, and he was glad to get home before it had started to come down heavily, checking the clock it showed 2:41am, much too late for someone to be staying up working. Rumbling from the thunder outside had him concerned at the lack of noise from the man, over his shoulders, as he was at least snoring earlier. He propped him up on one of the cushions on his lounge and checked to make sure that he was okay. Apart from the sweat dripping down his forehead and his gaunt face, which was most likely due to working himself down to the bone, he seemed fine. 

Setting him down on the couch he went up to check that the guest room was appropriate for use, occasionally the children made a mess in there. Tidying up the few toys strewn around, with the storm intensifying in the background was calming, he never really got moments like this during work and it was nice to set aside his thoughts and worries for once and just concentrate on medial tasks. 

The storm had grown louder outside, howls of the wind sent trees crashing into the windows. Washington had experienced many storms likes this before and they certainly weren’t in the comfort of his own home. Looking outside he just caught the tail end of one of the trees falling outside with a loud crash, the noise was enough to startle him. Being on the second floor he knew the sounds had been muffled and was curious to see if that had woken the young secretary downstairs, it certainly must have been deafening down there and he didn’t want the man to feel as though the house was about to crash around him. Climbing down the stairs he saw that the room was still cast in the light of the candles on the desk however, Hamilton was no longer on the couch, in fact Washington couldn’t find him anywhere. Searching around the room and kitchen he was perplexed as to how such a small man with such a large amount of energy was able to hide from him so easily when usually he was easily heard from the other side of the building. 

A loud crash sounded outside from the storm outside and he turned his head over to the fire place where he saw the secretary running out of the room and nearly slamming into the locked front door in an attempt to escape. He was frantically pulling on the door handle, struggling to get it open and when another loud crash sounded from outside that only seemed to fuel the panicked fear inside him. Washington had seen Hamilton jump a couple times from storms out in the field however the panic registering in front of him at the moment was like nothing he had seen before. Walking towards him he heard Hamilton breathily repeat panicked words out of his mouth.

“I have to get out, it’s going to crash all around me again, I can’t die like this, I’m not going through this again, I’m getting out, I am not going to die like this.”  
He seemed to have no filter on the words coming out of his mouth and continued to ramble on and on, an endless stream as his breaths became lighter and more frequent.

Now Washington could be dense at times but having been in charge of many different men for many years one thing he was able to recognise was panic attacks. Being at war meant that men would frequently have nightmares and he was in charge of his battalion and making sure they didn’t hurt themselves or other when these attacks occurred. The way Hamilton was acting, his obvious exhaustion from earlier and the fact that he had just woken up to loud crashing outside showed that he was disoriented and not quite examining the situation clearly. Washington grabbed a hold of Hamilton’s shoulder as an anchor for the man, knowing that if worse comes to worst he would be able to hold the man down to prevent him from further harm, a move he had used before on others. 

Hamilton whipped around and faced Washington, stilled panicked and disoriented he seemed shocked and even more panicked at his presence in the situation.

“Sir, w-what are you doing here, no you can’t be here, I have to get you out, I can’t let you die here, I’m going to get us out if I can just open this godDAMN DOOR!”

Throwing himself at the door, Washington grabbed a hold of Hamilton before he either dislocated or broke his shoulder from the impact. The man struggled in his arms, screaming at him to let him go, that they were going to drown, and they had to leave now! Washington eventually got enough grip on the man that he was able to carry him up into the guest room he had been setting up earlier, the door had a lock on it and Washington was able to lock it behind him before Hamilton attempted to push past him to open it again.

“Sir what are you doing, please we need to leave we need to get out of here, we’re going to drown, and I can’t let you drown. What about the soldiers the war, we can’t let this all be in vain, sir please we need to-“

“Hamilton, calm down,” Washington grabbed a hold of his shoulders forcing the younger man to look at him, “now, I don’t know what’s going on inside that brain of yours but you’re having a panic attack and you need to calm down.”

Hamilton for once, closed his mouth and listened to the general, still sporadically looking out the windows at every crash of the trees against the house or flash of lightning from the storm. But it was an improvement.

“I need you to breath with me Alexander, you’re hyperventilating and at this point you’re going to pass out again okay,” He nodded, “now, breath in for five hold for three and release on five, okay? One, two, three, four five. Good. One, two, three. Good and out on five. One, two, three, four, five.”

Washington repeated this a few more times before allowing Hamilton to just continue on his own. After a couple minute Washington could tell Hamilton had calmed down but still wasn’t in the right place as he flinched too often at the movements outside.

“Alexander, where are we?” He needed to find out exactly what was going through his head before he could help him.

“I don’t know, there’s a hurricane outside and the only hurricanes are in Nevis.” Washington frowned at this. It’s the island where Hamilton grew up, he had heard of the storm that had happened there, but the full details never reached the mainland.  
“Hamilton you’re not in Nevis anymore, there aren’t any hurricanes. You’re here in America, remember? You moved here years ago. You’re safe here. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

Hamilton looked around, starting to actually look around the room, walking over to the window he took a while to look out the window before turning back to Washington.

“Are you sure we’re going to be safe here, that’s exactly what James said before-”  
“I promise Hamilton, you aren’t going to die, I’m not either. We’re safe here and nothing’s going to change that, okay?”

He nodded at the man’s words, cautiously walking up to him before surprising him once again. Hamilton wrapped his arms around Washington in a tight embrace. It was often that Washington would help his subordinates to calm down through physical contact, but this seemed so out of character for Hamilton. He didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around the smaller man though, he knew better. Hamilton didn’t seem to react to this, but he wasn’t letting go anytime soon. Washington accepted this and bent down as to not throw his back out at the height difference.

Eventually Hamilton loosened his grip but before he could run away from the encounter Washington was able to grab him.  
“You’re staying in here tonight; will you be alright by yourself. The storm probably won’t die down until the morning and I’m not going to let you hurt yourself in your own delusions.”  
“I’ll be alright sir, thank you for your hospitality.”

Washington made sure to throw back one more look at Hamilton as he closed and locked the door behind him. He wasn’t sure if he was going to remember this in the morning, he still seemed out of it, but he trusted the secretary enough to know that he wasn’t going to throw himself back into a panic. Either way he stayed up for a couple more hours as the storm howled outside, once he was satisfied that Hamilton wasn’t going to wake up again, he retired to his own bed.

Hamilton was slow to wake and groggy, his head pounded as though it was caught in a vice and he felt like throwing up. Lifting the sheets off his body he started to climb out of the bed.  
‘wait…wasn’t I at-‘  
“OH SHIT, THE ASSISTANCE PAPERS!”  
Jumping out of bed Hamilton raced towards the door only to find it locked by slamming his face and most of his body into it before falling back onto the floor. Rushed footsteps could be heard outside as Hamilton scooted away from the door hearing it being unlocked a few seconds later only for it to swing open and for Washington to come barrelling in.  
“Hamilton! Are you alright?”  
Desperately looking around the room before meeting eyes with Hamilton on the floor he breathed a sigh of relief before holding out a hand to assist Hamilton off the floor.  
“Son, are you okay? I heard you crash into the door.”  
“Yes, I’m alright. I just have to get back and finish my work-“ He explained whilst trying to squeeze past Washington towards the door and freedom from this situation. Noticing his advancements though Washington stepped in front of him preventing the escape.  
“Unfortunately, you will not be going to work today. I have something much more important for you to do.”  
“Anything sir, what do you need?”  
“To stay home and relax for once.”  
Hamilton stared up at Washington with a dumbfounded look of disbelief on his face.  
“No offence sir, but you can’t be serious right? With the war in full blown conduct, our troops needing more supplies by the day, drafting up the government for when the war is over, re-organising the troops from General Lee’s Battalion from after he ‘left’, organising all the battles for the colonists, trying to evacuate war-zone areas around the battles. There’s simply no time for trivial things like this, I simply need to get back to my work if I’m going to be able to help you with this.”  
“Now son that’s enough, eating and sleeping are not trivial things-“  
Hamilton muttered under his breath “I’m not your son.”  
“Well then what would you prefer I call you, because at the moment you’re pouting like a child.”  
Hamilton’s face flushed as he realised, he had been sticking out his lip at the floor. Quickly bringing his face back to a more composed expression, he still stared at the floor as he gave his reply.  
“Just calling me Alexander or Alex would be fine. I’d prefer that at the least.”  
“Very well then Alex, I’ve prepared breakfast downstairs if you would like to join me, or I have a spare set of clothes that you would be able to change into for something more comfortable.”  
“Breakfast would be fine.”  
Washington nodded, towards the door and led Alex down to the main area of the house. There was a large kitchen that connected into a much larger dining room. Alex seemed astonished at the size, much larger than his cottage kitchen back at his own house. Sitting down at the table in front of him was a large selection of food, obviously having parts of it taken from beforehand.  
“My apologies about the mess, my children and wife just left a while ago and I haven’t had the chance to clean it up yet.”  
“It’s perfectly alright sir.”  
“Please, since I am calling you by your first name call me George.”  
Shifting nervously in his seat Alex recited the name a few times in his head to get used to it.  
“Well you don’t just have to sit there, feel free to grab whatever you want, my wife usually makes too much anyways, and I end up bringing some to work with me.”  
‘Oh, so that where the French toast comes from.’  
He fills up his plate and has his fill of breakfast, despite his previous stubbornness completely throwing his appetite out the window he seemed to be absolutely starving after the first bite and had at least 2 plates before throwing in the towel. Leaning back in the chair he allowed his guard to drop and to relax into the fullness of his stomach and the fatigue wash over his body from just waking up. Hell, there isn’t even a time for him remembering to feel like this. During his childhood it was a struggle to find food and when he moved to America, he didn’t have enough money at first to buy much of anything, too busy with his studies and them too busy with working for Washin- George. He really never got to do anything like this ever. Pushing the empty plate away from him and crossing his arms on the table before laying his head down he simply let the sounds of George in the kitchen cleaning the earlier dishes wash over his mind and distract him from the usual worries of his days lately. The clinking in the background eventually faded away as he fell asleep.

Looking back over to Alex as he heard soft snore brought a smile to his face as he saw him relaxed against table, his head propped up in his arms. Finishing up the last of the dishes before taking both Alex’s and the leftover dishes off the table, he laughed at the fact that the 7 pieces of French toast the were left were gone. Although he tried to be sneaky everyone in the office knew that Alex’s favourite breakfast from Martha was French toast and George always made sure to ask her to make extra to bring to the office so that Alex would get some. It always made him smile to see his secretary happily munching away at the few pieces he had grabbed whilst working on a paper or essay for him or congress. Unfortunately, as the war waged on the treats to work became rarer as George would usually end up rushing out of the house to get to work after staying there late one too many nights, but at least he was going home to sleep. There were many times before this incident that he had seen Alex there when he left and again in the morning seeing the man there, questioning to himself whether he had actually left for the night or not, and whilst the occasional all-nighter was needed to get some stuff done, it was simply becoming too often of an occurrence for George not to worry about him. Eleven nights awake was enough to make a grown man go insane and was surprised to find Alex still in his own right mind…mostly.

Finishing up the dishes and putting the non-perishables into containers and the rest to the chickens outside he walked back over to Alex and picked him up out of the now uncomfortable position he was in an carried him back to the couch in the lounge room to finish off the rest of his nap in peace. Grabbing a book and his reading glasses after making sure that all the cabinet doors were closed, after last night he didn’t want a repeat again, he sat down in the arm chair next to the couch in order to keep an eye on the sleeping man for any further disturbances. 

For the next couple hours, the room was filled with Alex’s snores and the ambient noise of George going through his book and papers, trying to figure out ideas to get more support from the congress. He realised now that he had been shovelling a lot of his problems with congress onto Alex and that he needed to take on some of the responsibility himself. However, it was more difficult than he had planned and he had ended up moving to the dining table to have more room for organising how he was going to work on this, it had been a few months since Alex had insisted on taking this all on. 

Working away he hadn’t realised Alex had woken up until he saw a few pieces of paper being slid away from him and Alex wearing his own glasses working on one of the pieces Geroge had started a while ago but dropped due to it requiring knowledge of another event occurring within a letter to congress. 

Glaring at Alex he slid the papers back towards him as Alex wrote furiously on the paper in front of himself determined to finish his thoughts before George stole it away from him. When George did eventually try to take the paper from him instead of giving it up, he moved further away from him as he was still furiously writing down the ‘select words’ he had to give to congress about his ‘ridiculous ideas’. Now that was not the right idea as instead George got up from his seat and walked over to him as he moved further away just trying to get down the last of the information. Eventually he got up and sprinted away with a hard cover book in hand to right on, George hot on his heels in a few seconds determined to make sure that he doesn’t overwork himself.

“Alexander, you give that back right now, what did I say you were going to do today?”

Not gracing that question with a response instead Alex ran into the guest room and threw his body against the door preventing the General from barging in. Locking the door from the inside he quietly waited for the footsteps of George to fade away before jumping into the closet and hiding himself in a corner under the clothes, where it may have been hard to see what he was writing but he could still be invisible from George. Hearing the click and lock open made him immediately stopped writing and quietened his breathing. He was stomping around the room loudly, so it was easy to hear him making his way to the closet and throwing the door open. He waited with bated breath as George marched away from the door and out of the room. He quickly wrote down the last of his responses to the issue on the paper and quietly listened to the noises of the house to see if he could identify where George was in the house.  
The whistle of the kettle downstairs gave him a clue as he heard the same footsteps as before, but with less anger, marching down the stairs towards the kitchen. He had seen before where the front door was, and it was in full view of the kitchen so he couldn’t go now. Waiting for the sounds of the General returning to his room he snuck out of the closet and with paper, quill and shoes in hand he quietly snuck down to the dining room. Creeping down the stairs he made sure not to step loudly at all and was able to make it down without setting George off. Placing the paper down on the table he wrote out a quick apology on another piece and made his way to the front door. He had a choice now. He could wait a few more minutes to see if George goes to sleep or back to work upstairs and gets distracted, or he could open the door now and alert George of his exact location. Not getting much of a choice as he hear George exiting his room he threw on his shoes and raced out the door slamming it behind him no doubt alerting George as seconds later he heard another slam of the door being closed and not even bothering to look back as he could hear George scream out his full name. Running for his life through the alleys he learnt when he first arrived, it was only after 10 minutes of solid running did, he allow himself to slow down and look back at the bustling city around them. Not seeing or hearing any sign of George, he leaned against a wall to catch his breath. Walking out of the alley he peaked around for good measure before heading back to his temporary home here. However, George wasn’t the general of the American army for nothing. He was able to keep up with Alex but allowed him to get ahead enough that he falls into a false sense of security before following him home. Making a note of his address he made his way back to his own home knowing that going inside now was just going to make his blood boil if he saw anymore papers Alex had been working on. He needed to cool off and the best way to do that was to go for a walk around the city. It was 9am, the streets were bustling with energetic life. He made sure to also note down to grab Alex out of work tomorrow as soon as he arrived.  
The next day Alex made sure to show up to work as early as possible he had stayed up all night working on projects, again, and was eager to get back to his work with Washington. The break was nice but honestly, he didn’t know why he did something like that when it’s just so much easier to keep working at the office rather than waste time sleeping or eating.  
‘I mean I function just fine on coffee alone!’  
He did have to admit though the French toast was amazing.  
Walking into his office it was quiet and dark, the perfect place to concentrate. He’d nearly forgotten about yesterday, until he heard large bootsteps going down the hall and his behind the blind spot of the door to his office. Seeing George walk in and then leave, closing the door behind him, Hamilton snuck back to his desk and began vigorously at his work again. The same cycle occurred every hour or so. Lunch rolled around 11am and a sweet breaded smell filled the air. Alex knew that this was probably a trick to get him out of his office, but he hadn’t eaten breakfast and by god was he not going to miss out on those for lunch. He tried to avoid as many of his colleagues as he snuck down the hall. Grabbing about half of the toast there, since there was plenty there for everyone, he had turned around already eating one when he came face to face with Washington right behind him. Staring up at him nervously, nearly dropping the papers and bread he gave George a shy wave with part of his hand.  
“Alexander, meet me in my office, now.”  
Gulping around the bread he walked behind Washington towards his own office. Luckily, he didn’t run into anyone else watch him follow Washington like a child in trouble but that didn’t make him any less embarrassed.  
Walking through the large doors that lead into Washington’s office he took a seat across from Washington, closing the doors behind them. However, George didn’t sit down at first instead once Alex had been settled, he walked over and snatched the papers and quill from his lap, walking back over, and placed them on his own desk before sitting down in front of Hamilton.  
“So, what happened yesterday?”  
“Um…well I left your house and went home to relax by myself.”  
“Alexander, we both know that’s bullshit now I want the truth.”  
Washington didn’t swear, at all, ever.  
“I…I stayed up for most of the night working on stuff.”  
“Most of the night?”  
“…all night, sir.”  
Sighing and leaning back in his chair, he rubbed is hand over his face in exasperation. He stared back at Hamilton nervously eating the bread he had taken, when their silence was cut by a knock at the door.  
“Come in.”  
“Sir I finished those papers on Hamilton you…is this a bad time?”  
Looking around the room Burr glanced at Hamilton’s pale, flushed face and Washington’s exasperated expression.  
“No, Burr, actually you’re here at a perfect time why don’t you take a seat next to Alex here and we can discuss that mandatory leave he will be taking.”  
“Mandatory leave? Sir taking me home last night, to rest, was fine, but I simply can’t just stop working! How will I be able to relax knowing that there are troops out there who need commands that I’m currently working on, and what about congress, they’re still not sending any resources that-“  
“Now Hamilton that is enough.” Washington said firmly, stopping Alex in his words.  
“This has already been drafted up by Burr and the rest of your work has been split up by the other workers here who are able to work on them.”  
“But sir-”  
“No buts Alexander, you may work today but after that if I see you inside the office for the next week, I’m tying you to the pole outside.”  
Burr let out a snort at the image, whilst Alex sat there with a gobsmacked look on his face.  
“A WEEK?! There’s no way I can leave for a week that’s way to long for me to be away from the office! Sir, please can’t I just leave and work on all of this at home?”  
Washington stood from his chair and politely asked Burr to leave the room. Standing up from his seat Burr left glancing back at Hamilton, who now wore a regretful look on his face. The door closed behind Alex and he stared back at the man in front of him who now looked much taller than he had before, the hat on his head casting a shadow on his face.  
“Now son, I will tolerate you working in my office late into the night, I will tolerate your brash behaviour around others but, you have pushed far beyond the line and as your commander I will not tolerate being talked to in such a tone for something as simple as taking time off. Do you know what could happen if you continued to stay up? You could get sick or injure yourself in your own delirium, like you almost did last night and basically did this morning. It’s imperative that all of my soldiers remain as healthy as possible during this hard time.”  
“But sir, I could wo-”  
“No buts Alexander, you will go home this instant and relax and don’t think that if I find you here in the office late at night that I won’t hesitate to drag you over my shoulder like last night and actually tie you to the pole outside.”  
Alexander wanted to fight back, he was stretched way too thin and he knew that his plans were dependant on some information that he had only thought up this morning and hadn’t written down yet, but he yielded and set on his way home thinking up on how he was going to work on the letters to congress at home without the papers from the office. It wasn’t like anyone could ever stop his brain going from idea to idea.

Arriving at his current home he set to work immediately, it’s not like Washington knew where he lived anyways. The men he worked with had been given temporary homes and had been randomly assigned houses that had been bought for this purpose, so Washington would have to search all of them before finding the one he resigned in. Sitting down in the study he had set up he went to work on the subjects on the table literally and figuratively. It was late at night when he thought that he heard that the front door had opened. Looking up at the clock it read 4:27am, he had finished to toast a long time ago and his stomach rumbled in protest to missing dinner, it wasn’t like he had pulled all-nighters like this before, so he dismissed the noise from the door to the early morning wind around this area.

Washington made his way over to the living area where like he suspected papers were strewn around the place not in any organised structure as though a hurricane had run rampant through the room. Walking further into the room he found Hamilton sitting in the corner of the room working vigorously on whatever was in front of him. Feeling the blood in him boil at the man defying his wishes. He reached into his bag pulling out the thick rope he had brought in case Hamilton had decided to defy him, again. Walking over to the man working at his desk he wrapped the rope immediately around his arms tying him to his own chair where he was sitting.  
“GAH! What the hell?!”  
Looking over his shoulder he found Washington grabbing the back of the chair that he was tied to and dragging him towards the stairs up to him bedroom.  
“Sir! How did- Where did you find me?”  
“You may run fast Hamilton, but I wasn’t promoted to General because I had bad eye sight.”  
Lowering his head in shame he decided to just live with the fact that he had been caught by his commander doing exactly what he was told not to do, and he was followed back home yesterday not sneaking off as successfully as he had thought.  
After dragging Hamilton up the stairs towards his bedroom he took a look around the room and saw even more scattered papers around his desk in the corner but also on the bed and pinned to the wall with lines connecting certain ideas. Sighing to himself he really didn’t have enough energy to clean all of this and he doubted Hamilton would help and would rather run back to his work. He thought to himself for a moment whilst looking over the room again. Leaving Hamilton in the hall he walked into the closet where he found his nightwear and grabbed a pair before walking back to Hamilton. Placing the clothes on the floor he spun the chair around before untying Alex from the chair. Seeing him rubbing the marks on his arms George grabbed his wrists before he could escape and quickly tied them together so he couldn’t escape. Wrapping the rest of the rope around his chest before tying his ankles together, he slung Hamilton over his shoulder again.  
“Sir! What are you doing?”  
“We are going back to my house, it’s too early to even think about how I would clean that,” pointing to the room in front of them, “so we are going back to my place and if I hear a single complaint out of you I’m keeping you tied up for the next week.”  
Grumbling to himself but keeping his mouth shut at the threat he allowed himself to be throw over George’s shoulder and hauled down the now busy streets.  
Even in the early morning there were still people outside and they obviously recognised him as General George Washington and his aide-de-camp Alexander Hamilton, so instead of facing the whispers of mocking voices he buried his face in George’s shoulder and closed his eyes attempting to hide from the world without embarrassing himself. The voices started to fade away as he eventually succumbed to his own exhaustion and starvation and fell asleep, again, on George’s shoulder. 

Waking up later he found himself changed into his pyjamas in the same bed as when he had first woken up in George’s home, his head was pounding making him feel nauseous and dizzy. A hot flush was covering his face, it was the middle of summer and it wasn’t exactly cool, the blankets pulled up past his shoulders keeping him hot but comfortable. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he heard the bustle of the house around him. Small children yelling and the sounds of 2 people trying to corral them from the upstairs, away from his room. The wave of dizziness and the nausea within his head had him opting not to leave the safe cocoon of the blankets yet he curled back into the bed trying to fall back asleep only to be interrupted a few minutes later by the door opening and the small patter of legs arriving next to his bed before he felt small hands climbing up onto the bed. Sitting up to see who disturbed him, he came face to face with what could only be described as a tiny, child-like George Washington. Hamilton had to hold himself back from cooing at the small child.  
“Hello, what are you doing in here?”  
“I’m hiding from daddy, he said I wasn’t allowed in here, but I got in anyways.”  
The child fell into a fit of giggles as Alex smiled at the boy, in his lap. An idea popped into his head. He was a bit annoyed at the fact that George had taken him away from his work last night dragged him through town like that. He made up a plan that was sure to work considering how he had seen the general react in situations before.  
“Well your father is very clever, but I know the perfect place to hide from him, but you have to be very quiet, okay?”  
The boy covered his mouth and nodded excitedly, muffled laughter escaping through the cracks of his fingers. Taking the boys hand Hamilton drags himself out of bed and brings him over to the closet and towards the slightly messed up but still legible nest of clothes that he had hidden in before.  
“In the corner there, if you hide in the clothes your father won’t see you at all.” Hearing the footsteps outside from the general coming closer an idea popped into his head. “How would you like to surprise your father?” He asked, a mischievous smile spreading across their faces. They both quickly climbed into the mess of clothes laughing to themselves. Closing the door behind them just in time Hamilton heard George enter the room calling out the boy’s name, John, as he giggled beside him. After George had walked around the room, the shifting of the sheets suddenly stopped, and he could feel the panic coming off of him.  
“Hamilton? Hamilton are you in here?”  
“Okay John when your father opens the door, we’re going to jump out okay?”  
He whispered this quietly to the child and the boy nodded his head, again, with tiny giggles peeking through his lips. They listened to the shuffling around the room and when the door opened, they both leapt out and tackles him to the ground in a fit of giggles and screams. George soon joining them as he realised that this plan was caused as a way to get back to him from this morning’s issues only being added on by the naivety of a young child, he laughed at the audacity of the situation.  
“Alright, alright…You got me I’ve learnt my lesson, now John what are you doing in Hamilton’s room?”  
The boy sheepishly looked away as he mumbled about wanting to meet the secret man in the room.  
“Well I reckon we should leave Alex to go back to sleep, after he was so rudely interrupted.”  
John started hysterically laughing as Washington attacks his sides, tickling him without remorse.  
“I have to say,” Hamilton butted in, “I wasn’t too upset to be visited by this young man.”  
He ruffled John’s hair who in receiving the attention released the grasp on his father shirt to climb on top of Hamilton for a tighter hug. George laughed mimicking Hamilton and ruffling his head enough to take the long locks out of the lose band covering his face.  
Hamilton blew the loose hair out of his face laughing drizzly in his own delirium.  
“Are you alright Hamilton? I apologise for my sons’ behaviour.”  
“No dad, it’s all fine. I’m going to head back to sleep.”  
Hamilton walked over to the spare bed oblivious to the quiet giggling from the boy or George’s shocked red face.  
Once Hamilton had crawled under the blankets the sound of quiet snoring pulled George from his thoughts. A soft smile grew on his face as he relished in the words spoken from the man before, confirming the thoughts that Hamilton saw him as a father-figure after his own father had left him at such a young age.  
Leaving the room George made sure this time to lock the door so that Alex wouldn’t receive any more interruptions, it had only been about an hour since he got home at 5:17am with Hamilton over his shoulder and whilst he had received a few hours’ sleep earlier before waking up to check on Hamilton, it was obvious that the man had stayed up all night working when he didn’t even leave his desk at the sound of the door opening. His mind too caught up in his own work to go and check on it.  
It was around 6pm when George started to get worried about Hamilton, he had been asleep for over 12 hours, whereas before he had only slept for a little under 3 hours before panicking and slamming into the locked door. His wife had left with the children to go visit their grandparents whilst he had stayed behind to keep an eye on the man. Martha had tried to ease he worries before leaving mentioning how he was, ‘probably catching up on all the sleep missed, didn’t you say he had been awake for over a week?’ She had been right of course but the way the man looked before and the uncanny words from before, while they still brought a smile to his face thinking about it, it was said by the man before that he didn’t enjoy being called ‘son’, so it was unlikely that the normally closed off man would be more open from just a spending a few hours with him. Still pondering he started climbing the stairs to the room, reaching the top he realised the door had been left ajar.  
‘Did Hamilton escape again?! I swear to god if I go to his house and find him working on that damn-’  
His thoughts were cut short at the sound of retching from the bathroom. Walking down the halls his thoughts were confirmed when peeking into the room he saw Hamilton leaning over the toilet basin retching what was left of his lunch from yesterday. Sighing to himself he went over to see is he needed any help only for Hamilton to collapse on the floor just narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the side of the basin.  
Checking the man over to make sure that he hadn’t actually hurt himself further than the puking, he lifted Hamilton up only to become more worried whilst he hadn’t noticed it before, more worried about the lack of sleep from the man, Hamilton was much too light. His body mustn’t have been more than about 150 pounds. He was much too light, not only for the muscle that should have been there but also for the amount of weight his soldiers usually have considering their diets and the vigorous exercise they had while out in the field. This sort of thing didn’t happen overnight or even in a week’s time, George knew that Hamilton’s eating habits must have been affected by his childhood but he thought that once he had gotten a good job he would have been able to relax more about when his next meal was going to come. Once again George had both under and overestimated his secretary. Speaking of which, Alex didn’t seem happy at all, his face was pale where it wasn’t flushed hot red and despite his almost constant movement throughout the day, even when exhausted, he didn’t seem to have any energy left to even move in his sleep.  
Taking the poor man to the spare room George placed his hand only Alexander’s forehead only to reel back at how hot it felt. He was definitely sick, as George had warned about this before, only for Hamilton to ignore and continue pushing his body past its’ limits. A sigh passed his lips as he continued to worry about the man in front of him.

George was pouting. It had a been a few days that Alex hadn’t left the room, his fever was going down little by little, but he still hadn’t broken through yet. He had been able to get some food and water into him as well but most of it was thrown up only a few minutes or hours later. He was frustrated at the slow recovery since most of the time he was easily able to pull his men out of sicknesses. It just showed to him again how much Hamilton had truly weakened throughout the weeks. A knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts, getting up from the side of the bed he heard 3 distinct and familiar voices outside the door. Opening it he was met with Lafayette, Mulligan and Burr all saluting towards him in a show of respect. He returned the gesture and Burr was the first to speak up.  
“Sir, I talked with you and Hamilton a few days ago and I know he is meant to be home at the moment but it appears-“  
“HE GONE!!...sir.”  
Mulligan called out over Burr. The other two agreed with him and explained that they thought he had been taken whilst exhausted.  
“I haven’t seen him in over a week, sir. Whenever I go over to invite him to the bar with Mulligan, Burr and I he always explains that he’s working and that there’s ‘simply too much to do at the moment, it will have to be at a later date,’ but now…”  
His sentence drifted off at the implication. George sighed out as he took a look at the three men in front of him, worried for their friend. Apparently, he wasn’t just locking himself up at the office.  
“Why don’t you three boys come in for dinner, Hamilton’s…alright for the moment, he just needs to rest.”  
The three looked at each other in confusion before following George into his home. Glancing around the room, Lafayette was the one to break the silence this time, the other opting not to interrupt him.  
“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, we went over to check on him at his house before coming to you. We couldn’t find him anywhere. How are you so sure that mon petit lion is alright and just ‘resting’.”  
“Hamilton’s asleep upstairs, he refused to stop working at the office or from home, so I brought him to mine to keep an eye on him and keep him away from his work.”  
Mulligan was laughing loudly as Burr projected his thoughts, “Honestly that sounds exactly like something Hamilton would do.”  
Mulligan nodded in his agreement, already having situated himself on the couch in the living room, more than comfortable to make himself at home. The men continued to have a shared dinner in the lounge laughing to each other about the obscenities of war and the plunders that they brought home from the last battle. Washington talks about the letter Eliza had sent him but told him not to tell Hamilton about.  
“So, Hamilton’s going to be a father when he gets home?” Burr questioned.  
“It seems so, and if I’m correct about the look on your face it seems he won’t be the only one.”  
Burr looks away, a hot flush covering his face as Lafayette and Mulligan celebrated beside him in congratulations.  
“Hey, Burr! So, who’s the one you knocked up.”  
“Yes! Tell us, we don’t want to be left in the dark.”  
“A young woman in London who travelled here just from the letters I sent her,” Burr had a sly smile on his face as he continued, “Oh, and did I not tell you at Hamilton’s wedding, the woman divorced her own husband to be with me.”  
The men cheered beside him, even Washington joining in on the fun.  
“You, sly dog, now that was something you didn’t tell me before.”  
The 4 men turned their head towards the stairs where the voice had come from. Washington rose from the couch towards Hamilton to make sure he was steady on his feet.  
“Hamilton! It’s good to see you up. Are you feeling better from earlier?”  
“Much, I have to say though, sir, this isn’t my first time being sick.”  
Mulligan cringed, “Oh dude, you were sick that sucks, I always hate it when I have to stay behind because of it.”  
“Oui, mon ami, but I think we all know exactly why this happened don’t we Burr?”  
“How many hours was it this time, Hamilton?”  
Hamilton followed George down to the lounge, the fever from earlier still present on his face but not as sever, “unfortunately not hours this time Burr,”  
“Hamilton, how long was it?” The three men were now staring intently at Alex waiting for an answer form the man in front of them.  
“Apparently…11 days…?”  
Burr was known for his level-headedness in the office, and everyone in the room could see and feel the snap of that, crumbling to pieces.  
“ELEVEN DAYS, HAMILTON HOW?!”  
The room was silent for a moment, everyone either comprehending the fact that Hamilton had stayed up that long or that Burr had just screamed at Hamilton. Hamilton just stared at the floor, the already present blush on his cheeks spreading up to his ears.  
“I guess I just lost track of time, there were a lot of assignments I was working on.”  
“No shit.”  
The bluntness from Burr’s comment helped break the tension of the room, as Hamilton laughed at his tone. They easily fell back into a comfortable conversation.

Eventually the men left wishing the both of them a good night as they set down the stairs. George went up to bed whilst Alexander opted to stay in the lounge fully awake after spending time with the four of them. George warned him not to stay up but held Alex to his word that he would head to bed at a reasonable time considering what time it was currently. Setting himself up with work he had stolen from George’s office when he first woke up earlier before coming downstairs. Setting the work down he headed into the kitchen to pour up a mug of coffee for the night, knowing that he won’t be heading to sleep even if he didn’t have coffee. His body just seems to hate him in that way.

Around 1 am is when he decided to move his work into the bedroom so at least George wouldn’t nag him over that. He’d gotten through most of the plan for some of the smaller battles up until their supplies would eventually run out with the current support, they would be receiving. Compiling this all together he started on a letter to congress talking about the calculations he had done based off what they received, what they used, and what supplies they would need pressing forward if they were to succeed in the war. By the time he had compiled his small stack of failed drafts and a final letter that he was going to send to congress the clock ticked by at 3:47am. Stretching from his seat he complied everything together including throwing the drafts in the bin and headed into bed. It had been a while since someone didn’t just pull him from his desk to go to bed.  
‘This is nice…God, I can’t remember the last time I felt like I was actually part of a-’  
Hamilton’s thoughts immediately ceased. Did he really feel that way about them?  
‘Well I mean sure they have supported me through this since I came to America, and I basically met Lafayette, Hercules and John on the first day I was here, Burr’s always been a stable head to keep me calm when I’m stressed out and Washington…’  
He didn’t really know how to describe it.  
His own father had left him at 10. He had always seen the boys back in the Caribbean as lucky since they never seemed confused about their standing in life. Hamilton hadn’t had that luxury. Even before the hurricane hit, before his mother died, before his father left, he didn’t really understand what he was meant to do. His mouth was too small for all the thoughts in his head and whenever he tried to speak up about it, he was always pushed down. It was surprising that he hadn’t become meek or quiet during this, but his mother had always supported him through it, even after his father had left them with no money or suitable ways to support themselves. His mother had pushed him further and further in education as he got the top grades in his class, then they got sick. The yellow fever had always been a rumoured disease in their village, they were one of the lucky one to survive the worst of it when it first hit then island. When his mother had become sick, they were instantly exiled from the village. In the coming weeks his fever broke, but his mother died in her sleep. The hardest thing had been returning to his village to live with his cousin. He worked for a trading company at first, controlled by his mother’s old landlord, when his cousin committed suicide, they were kind enough to take him in. Then the hurricane hit.

He’d realised he had started to panic, the mixture of his confused feelings over George and the reminder of the hurricane wasn’t much to start him along the line. Pulling the blankets around him he counted to 10 in the languages he knew. It was a simple thing his mother used to do in order to help him calm down when he was younger. He still used it to this day not just as a way of calming himself down but as a reminder of his mother’s love towards him.  
Pulling himself out from the cocoon of blankets he had buried himself in he crawled over to the window in the room looking out at the explosion of colours along the horizon. Just as he had guessed earlier, he wasn’t able to sleep tonight, in part due to the coffee, but mostly due to his own thoughts. Looking over to the clock it read 5:04am, listening around the house he wasn’t able to hear any signs of Mrs. Washington arriving home with her 2 children or George waking up to check on him. He curled up by the side of the window opting to soak in the warmth of the early morning rays.

Waking up, George didn’t particularly expect Hamilton to be up at 6:17am, he had woken up the previous night to see him working at his desk in the room with a mug of coffee next to him, cursing at the papers in front and scattered around him. He was annoyed but when he saw the mug, he knew that even if he burned the work in front of him, he wasn’t going back to sleep. Going to check up on the boy in the morning though he was surprised to see him wrapped up in a blanket watching outside of the window. It was a peaceful scene that he was glad he didn’t interrupt. Exiting the room, placing a door stop so it wouldn’t slam shut or close and interrupt the scene that way he made his way downstairs to start on coffee and breakfast for the both of them. 

George walked up the stair holding 2 cups of coffee, the food was downstairs just cooling off under a tea towel. He was still in the same position as before, but a white and ginger cat had crawled up the side of the house and was attempting to play with his finger through the glass. Running his finger along it as he watched the cat chase it. He walked up behind Hamilton greeting him without his knowing approach, the man jumped a bit before turning around to face him.  
“Oh, good morning, sir.”  
“It’s good to see your up, we don’t have to use the formalities here Alex, did you have a good sleep last night?” He passed the mug of coffee to Alex.  
Taking the mug in his hands, “I wasn’t able to get back to sleep last night.”  
“Yes, I saw the mug of coffee you were drinking to stay up to work.”  
Hamilton looked towards the desk where the mug in question was sitting there empty, next to the small pile of papers.  
“I just wasn’t able to sleep, before the coffee, I mean.”  
“I’m not surprised, you’ve been in and out for a few days, I’m pretty sure it the most sleep I’ve seen you get all week.”  
“Really? Huh, I guess I really was out of it, it feels like it hasn’t been more than a few hours, maybe a day.”  
George hummed, staring back out the window he stood to lift the latch off the top of the window, hidden by the curtains, the window opened, and the cat hopped in yowling up at him. Sitting back down on the pane the cat happily crawled into the blanket Hamilton had wrapped around himself, crawling around before gracelessly falling off the pane.  
They both laughed as the cat sprung back onto the pane settling themselves in Alex’s lap.  
“Are you going to be alright today?”  
Hamilton looked up at George, finally considering the question for himself. Was he?  
“Yeah, I might just take the day off, dad.”  
His face heated up and when he looked over George just has a soft smile on his face.  
“I-I didn’t mean- well I guess I did but-”  
“I thought I’d be on my death bed before I heard you say that, son.”  
He went to mumble ‘I’m not your son’ under his breath but he felt George’s arm sneak around him to pull his closer.  
‘Fuck it.’  
He shuffled closer to George relaxing against him.  
He could get used to this.


End file.
